A Long Way From Paradise
by Trust No One
Summary: After Cleitus’ death, Alexander’s companions and generals have come to a shaky agreement that their former comrade was guilty of treason. But Alexander feels differently. Companion piece to 'VIGIL'


Author: Trust No One  
Rating: R  
Pairing: A/H  
Summary: After Cleitus' death, Alexander's companions and generals have come to a shaky agreement that their former comrade was guilty of treason. But Alexander feels differently.  
Warning: Non-con (since most readers believe that is what it really is, but you make up your own mind)

Author Notes: This is a companion piece to an older fic called VIGIL, which deals precisely with the above mentioned meeting where Cleitus' treason is offered as a possibility. It is not necessary to read it to understand this, however some of the main themes were already set there and it could help to set the mood for this one. Also based on Alexander's remark that sleep and sex reminded him of his mortality

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The early morning council was concluded and the generals scattered like confused wolves bereft of their pack, all too glad to have bought themselves passage out of the confining walls at the price of Alexander's guilt. Cleitus had been dubbed a traitor to his king and they could all rest easy, while pretending that their consciences were clear. None of them sought one another's company, each retreating into the ostensible haven of their own lodgings, some to think but most to try and exorcise the memory of a terrible night and an exhausting morning after by any means available.

'Hephaistion! Wait!' Eumenes' voice ripped through the unnatural stillness of the Marakandan morning. He grunted, trying to catch up with the younger man climbing the stone staircase towards the officer's quarters.

'What do you want, Eumenes?' Hephaistion asked wearily, without slowing his step or turning towards the King's secretary.

'I'm sorry for my words earlier at the meeting,' Eumenes let the words out in one breath. It was a poor apology, he knew, but he had to capture the attention of the king's dearest companion. It worked: Hephaistion stopped and turned exhausted, red rimmed eyes towards the other man. Yet there was a spark there, a flicker of anger that almost made Eumenes think that Hephaistion was going to snarl at him and finish telling him what he had not said during the meeting, for the benefit of the other generals.

'We were all on edge,' Hephaistion said instead, tightening his lips a little. He was too tired to put the mask on properly, or maybe he did not entirely care to wear it after all. 'What do you want?' he repeated, like the worn out parent of a tiresome child.

Eumenes looked around, futilely so, for there was no other living soul on the staircase.

'You must go to him, Hephaistion,' he said, nevertheless cautious.

Hephaistion's face slivered into a smirk, his eyes challenging Eumenes to dare say more.

'Don't misunderstand me,' the secretary added hastily, reaching out to grasp Hephaistion's arm. 'Hear me out.'

On any other day, Hephaistion would have glanced down deliberately at Eumenes' hand touching his own. But this morning, with exhaustion pouring out of him like blood out of a severed jugular, Hephaistion just stared.

'You must tell him about the decision without delay,'

'Of course I will tell him,' Hephaistion explained haggardly, 'though I doubt that he is ready to listen just yet.'

Eumenes searched the ground, thinking of the best way to say what he had not yet uttered. The words that he had rehearsed in his head moments before seemed insufficient, even ridiculous.

'He loves you, Hephaistion,' he breathed just as hastily, fearing the other's protests or insults, 'and he will listen to you.'

Hephaistion sighed, a weakness that he would not have allowed himself in front of Eumenes had he not been at the end of his tether.

'This has nothing to do with-'

'Yes it does,' Eumenes interrupted fiercely. 'Because you are Alexander too.'

'Don't!' Hephaistion spat, eyes coming alive with anger and teeming with the desire to tear Eumenes apart. 'How dare you bring that up now, of all times?'

'Please, Hephaistion, it was not meant as an insult. In fact, rather the opposite.' Eumenes' voice held an edge of respect that Hephaistion had never heard before. His anger dissolved just as quickly as it had erupted. His fatigued, unshaven face crinkled up in a frown.

'I have no time for games,' he growled and started to turn.

'Forgive me,' Eumenes said, ostensibly chastised. 'What I am saying is: be Alexander, just for today. Share his anguish and don't let him punish himself. '

Hephaistion's gray countenance drained of what little blood was left in it. Eumenes would never know just how close to the truth he was, but he supposed that the look he gave the King's secretary was venomous enough because the man turned about and descended down the stairs as if the very hound of Hades was on his tail.

It was late afternoon when Hephaistion saw Alexander again. The sight that greeted him when he entered Alexander's chamber was little different from what he had left when he had gone to attend the generals' meeting. That the king had still not eaten or drank was plain from the tray of food still sat abandoned and untouched on the table.

It is never proper daylight in this wretched place, Hephaistion cursed as he strained his eyes in the room that barely held a trace of morning. Shutters were closed, the air was stifling with the mixed odours of sweat and incense, a dulcet, sickening smell so unlike the typically fresh scent that Hephaistion had always associated with Alexander's presence.

The King himself had remained in the same place where Hephaistion had left him earlier that morning, when he had gone to attend the generals' council: slumped in a chair beside Dionysius' altar, staring into the shy flame which held no memory of the god's terrible fury only the night past. Never before had Hephaistion seen Alexander so weighed down by despair.

'Leave me alone,' Alexander croaked. Even in the haze of confusion and anguish, his senses were sharp enough to feel another presence.

Hephaistion ignored the command. He glanced around for a sign of Bagoas and saw him crouching in a corner, silent as a mouse ensnared by a snake about to strike. Chasing away the unbidden thought that perhaps Alexander had got violent, Hephaistion beckoned to him and on closer inspection he noted the tear stained cheeks and hollowed eyes. But no marks. It was too soon after Cleitus, too soon for Alexander to lay a hand especially on one who could not even begin to defend himself. The violence would still come, as Hephaistion knew it must, but not yet. Not quite yet.

'Go and stay away until I call for you,' Hephaistion urged, as gently as he could muster. 'And no matter what you might hear through this door, do not let anyone in. Do you understand me? No one.'

Bagoas' eyes filled with dread but he pressed his lips together to stop them trembling and nodded his assent. He too seemed oblivious to wearing his usual mask today, all the more so in front of Hephaistion. Wiping his eyes angrily on his sleeve, Bagoas scampered away and closed the door quietly behind him.

'I told you to get out,' the disembodied voice rang out again, bringing renewed awareness to Hephaistion of what lay ahead of him.

He sat beside the king, careful not to touch him. Proximity and the chance of closeness could so easily alter his purpose.

'It is enough now, Alexander,' he spoke quietly, schooling his failing voice into composure.

The king whipped around, his eyes bleeding exhaustion and despair unlike Hephaistion had ever seen. His heart twisted at the sight and his will almost failed him. He wanted to gather Alexander in his arms, to soothe him like a child and tell him it would all be well, but knew that he could not.

'Enough? Who are you to tell me it's enough?' a grotesque smile spread across Alexander's crumbling countenance. 'I say when it is enough! No other!'

'Then I should remind you that I am Alexander too.' Hephaistion replied evenly.

Alexander's eyes unfocused for a moment. 'Not anymore,' he whispered. 'The Alexander that you all knew and loved is gone, consumed by his own hubris. The East has done its work well. You can no longer be part of the tyrant who kills all those he used to call his friends one by one, as the East devours his mind piece by piece.' His tone acquired a hushed tonality, as if he was letting on an important secret. Hephaistion kept quiet, knowing that Alexander thought of Philotas and mostly of Parmenion.. Traitor or not, there was an element of guilt that Alexander had felt even as he had issued the death orders for his father Parmenion out of bitter necessity.

'I know what they say about me,' Alexander continued, gazing right through Hephaistion, as if he had been made of smoke and wind, 'my friends, my trusted companions.'

Alexander's grey lips curled into a smile that on a face less tormented would have looked strained. On him it looked downright maniacal. 'They say that the price I pay for my hubris, for my conquering greed, is my mind. That the East has swallowed me whole and that I am blinded by the glory.'

Hephaistion shifted a little closer, his hand reaching tentatively, but not quite touching Alexander's.

'If they say that, then they are jealous,' he said softly, reassuringly 'or else you are being unfair.'

The king's bleary eyes finally found Hephaistion's and inspected him, a little surprised, a little pleased to find him there.

'You think I am being unfair.'

It was not a question.

'Yes, I do, to a certain extent' Hephaistion replied his tone returning to a more businesslike manner. 'There's been a council. Your generals voted to bring before the Assembly the possibility that Cleitus was a traitor and that you did not act wrongfully. They did it out of their love for you and you know that.'

Alexander seemed to consider this lucidly for a moment. He was not fooled. 'They did it out of love but no less out of need. Without me to keep the army together, it is a matter of time before everything crumbles and they know it,' he reasoned. A bitter grin illuminated his features.

'You know what else they say? They say that in the end, I will kill you too, because I will be tired of listening to the only voice of reason. They're afraid I'm turning into some kind of demon who feeds on their flesh and spirit.'

'I'm not afraid of that.'

'What are you afraid of then?'

'I'm afraid that you are going to sit here, feeling sorry for yourself and decrying your pitiful state, while whoever you think 'they' are are out there, having plenty of time to think those thoughts.'

Alexander gathered his shoulders together, bending his head and shaking it. 'You are right, Hephaistion. I am mistaken and unfair in speaking this way.'

'Even the gods have been known to be unfair and make mistakes.,' Hephaistion said slowly. 'You're only mortal, Alexander. How can you be flawless?'

'You dare tell me that?' Alexander ground out, the veins on his neck standing out ready to burst. For a moment, Hephaistion said nothing, instead gave the king a long, questioning look.

'What are you going to do? Spear me?'

The words clanged with the harshness of metal and Hephaistion regretted having to put salt into the raw wound. But he had to. Alexander's hand clutched him by the neck. The king's face drew close to that of his friend.

On any other day, Alexander would have seen the wisdom in those words. Just as on any other day, Hephaistion would have pressed on, telling Alexander exactly what he did not want to hear. The proximity of fire did not scare Hephaistion, but the breath of defeat did, hovering as it was over Alexander and cocooning him to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. Alexander's hand still reached out of that mist of madness, but the clutch on Hephaistion's throat had relented somewhat.

'And what makes your pain divine?' the dearest friend whispered hoarsely in the slackening grip. 'What makes it so different from that of any other man who got drunk and killed a close friend?'

'The penance,' Alexander answered, his eyes like dead, muddy pools. 'The god singled me out for my folly-'

'No, Alexander,' Hephaistion countered gently, 'he did not. He has done that many times before, too many others, under your very eyes, only you chose to not see it. You are no different. You are just another mortal, like the rest of us.'

Alexander, Hephaistion knew, had never been afraid of either pain or retribution. His flesh had been scored and seared so often by every death implement known to man that pain had become close as a lover. The only hurt that Hephaistion could think would mar Alexander's mind, that would be fit for the punishment that his King believe that he justly deserved was what Hephaistion knew was going to happen.

It had happened only once before, in the confusing, heated aftermath of Philip's assassination, when Alexander had mutated into a violently shivering fiend, coveting to punish himself for not being there, for not taking action against the hand that had driven the dagger into his father's gut. Hephaistion had physically fought Alexander who, at the height of his pain, had sought to damage himself, pulling out his hair and raking his nails across his face and chest – something that he would never be able to do in front of anyone else other than Hephaistion, who had instinctively understood what Alexander needed. And he had let himself endure Alexander's pain, cleansing his spirit somewhat, making him ready to face what was to come: the kingship that Alexander had never desired at the price the Philip had paid.

But now there was no question of who bore the guilt and whose hand had driven the spear into Cleitus' chest. With amazing speed, for one whose state was believed to be weakened, Alexander seized Hephaistion and had him pressed with his face against the wall. The taller man's hands splayed on the cold stone as if seeking purchase against a tempest far too strong to withstand. Clothes were pushed aside or ripped with fevered, resolute fingers and Hephaistion barely recognized his own groan of agony as Alexander ripped into him. A single feral, agonized breath escaped the lips of the conqueror, but afterwards not a word, not a gasp, not a groan, even as he felt the other's body hitching in pain and beginning to respond at the same time, in spite of the brutality.

It was over in minutes and Hephaistion weathered the storm with his lips pressed firmly together, intent on not shattering the ghastly silence even as he felt Alexander's body shaking in painful release. For a moment, it seemed as if Alexander would embrace Hephaistion from behind, as he always did in the aftermath of love, but at the last possible moment, the King pulled away. His flesh trembling, Hephaistion arranged his clothes swiftly, wincing in pain and turned to face the somewhat diminished frame of his king and lover, who stood suddenly wretched and lost in the middle of the room with tears shining in his eyes.

Hephaistion hobbled to the bed and splayed the gnarled sheets and covers into a semblance of order. He took an unresisting Alexander by the hand and made him lie down, soft and pliant like a sleepwalker.

'Close your eyes,' he ordered gently, tucking the covers around the King's frame.

A tear ran down Alexander's cheek. 'Hephaistion…' he breathed as if he were speaking his last words, 'I'm sorry…'

'I know,' Hephaistion soothed, pushing Alexander's overgrown, sweaty fringe out of his eyes. He waited a moment before he said. 'Cleitus' spirit knows that as well.'

Alexander nodded, his eyes falling shut as if on cue.

'Mortal,' he sighed before he drifted away.

When Hephaistion finally closed the door of his own room behind him, no one saw him slinking to the floor, his back supported against the door. His strength was finally giving in as if it were a life cut by the shears of the Fates.

They were wrong, Hephaistion thought with some satisfaction. Alexander was never going to take the life of his best friend. But Alexander's dream, Hephaistion knew just as surely, would be the death of him. He would do battle with Alexander's demons for as long as he could muster the strength to do so. He would absorb all that was poisonous so Alexander could stay clean. He would grow old so Alexander could remain young. For how long, he knew not for already he felt the demons advancing on him with the furtive, scurrying steps of an army of rats. He dismissed them with a broken laugh. After all, he had some fight left in him. He could keep them at bay for a while still.

For a while.

END


End file.
